Another Brief Blog Update

I don’t usually step outside my comfort zone, preferring to keep my personal, online and professional lives compartmentalized into neat little boxes. But life is rarely neat. It has a habit of sneaking up on you, whether you think you’re prepared or not. After a long bout of illness, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer, dementia, and most recently, a broken hip, my father passed away Wednesday afternoon.

Right now, I’m still processing everything, grappling with the reality that someone I’ve known my entire life is now gone. I can find some solace with the knowledge that he’s no longer experiencing chronic physical and mental pain, but it does little to erase the reality of the situation, which seems oddly surreal. With little precedent, outside of some losses on my wife’s side, I’ve had few personal experiences with death, and exploring my feelings on the subject is frankly beyond the scope of this blog.

As of this writing, I have a couple of half-written blog posts, including the latest Quick Picks and Pans, which I hope to get back to soon, but the words aren’t gelling right now. Movies have always been a comfort for me in good times and bad, and provided a means of alternatively escaping and interpreting the world. Watching and writing about movies has been my joy and my therapy, and I can’t imagine I could ever be away for very long. For now, however, I’m taking a short break. Thanks to all the well-wishers on Twitter, and to those who visit this blog on a regular basis. Your comments and support mean more than you could ever know. I hope things will return to some semblance of normality as soon as possible, and look forward to happier times ahead.